R. A. Christmas

The fiction R. A. Christmas

Our lives are often determined by a single, defining choice or experience. In Rick Robinson's case, it was his decision, as a teenager in the 1950's, to join the Mormon Church. Everything that followed was the result-more or less-of how well and how poorly he kept that commitment. Seven stories comprise the bulk of this book-snapshots of Rick from youth to late middle-age, from different perspectives and points of view. The effect is discontinuous, and sometimes disturbing. What's the worth of a Mormon life that's mostly a "running away"? What's the value of art that merely describes it? "the fiction" provides no answers to these questions. It simply embodies them. The final story is somebody's imagining of an alternative Mormon history.